


From The Ashes

by genarti



Category: Princess Tutu
Genre: Gen, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-04
Updated: 2010-01-04
Packaged: 2017-10-05 18:29:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 582
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/44743
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/genarti/pseuds/genarti
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Uzura misses someone.</p><p>For Becca, because it's all her fault.  (Warning: fic contains major spoilers for the end of <i>Princess Tutu</i>.  If you haven't seen the entire show, you might want to avoid.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	From The Ashes

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Becca (ryfkah)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ryfkah/gifts).



When I'm with Drosselmeyer, the only sounds are the gears going _clicka clicka clicka_ and my drum. Sometimes Drosselmeyer laughs, in time with the gears. _Ha-clicka-ha-clicka-ha-clicka-ha._ His teeth are big and white and shiny. I stare at them.

I bang my drum in rhythm. _Zura zura, zura zura._ It sounds like a beating heart. _Zu-ra, zu-ra, zu-ra._

_Very good, little Uzura!_ Drosselmeyer laughs, and we watch somebody through the gears and windows. The story goes everywhere.

But I remember how to step outside it. When he's not looking, I go back to the places that used to be story. I go back and I talk to my other friends.

\-----

I see Fakir. I see Charon. I bang my drum for Mytho: _zura zura_ for his heart, _zura zura_ for the way everybody else watched him. _Zura zura zura._ Sometimes I see Mytho and Rue. Their hearts beat in their chests, but I bang my drum anyway. They smile at me. Mytho smiles more.

I see Duck.

I miss girl-Duck. Duck ran around on long tall legs and bounced off of walls and smiled at me. Girl-Duck talked with her heart in every word: _zura zura zura zura._

Now Duck has big blue Duck-eyes and a yellow duck-tail and skinny paddling legs. She hugs my ankle with soft feathers. She says, _quack quack quack._

She puts wings to her heart and stretches them out to me. She puts a wing to her head, feathers spread like fingers. Fakir looks grumpy and says, _she says she's still your friend, moron._

It's not the same.

\-----

I tell Fakir to change Duck back. Let her be both. Fakir writes, _scritcha scritcha scritcha_, and the world changes. Fakir wants her back too, _zura_.

Fakir shouts at me. Fakir says no.

I hug Duck and she catches my tears with her feathers, _plip-plop-zura_. But she doesn't turn into a girl again.

\-----

I don't know what to do.

\-----

I will grow up, _clicka clicka_. I will grow up like big-me, tall and pretty. But I don't want to be sad, like big-me. I want to keep my friends.

Big-me says to myself: _this is the gem called maturity._

I listen to myself, wide-eyed. _Ohhhhhhhh,_ I say. When I'm grown up, I'll know lots.

Big-me says to myself: _this is the gem called being off-screen._

_This is the gem called free will._

In my hands, the air sparkles.

Big-me smiles at little-me, and I look up up up at her.

\-----

The first gem is green and the second gem is white. I take them out of the gears, _clicka clicka clicka_, to the lake outside the story. I plop down under a tree and put down my drum. They fit into each other and turn, _clicka clicka clicka STOP_ and then they don't turn any more and they don't come apart and I know they're stuck forever. I smile at them big and wide.

The third gem I keep. I put it inside my drum so I'll always have it and it rattles around, _zu-ra-ra u-zu-ra zu-ra-ra_.

Somebody is laughing, somewhere.

I take my drum with my gem inside, and the double gem that isn't mine anymore, and I go to find Duck.

_Happiness will be ours_, says big-me, and she sounds sad but she's smiling. I bang my drum: _u-zu-ra u-zu-ra u-zu-ra_, like a heart. Fakir will yell and Duck will hug me and I will never grow up big, _clicka clicka clicka_, but I'll always have my friends.


End file.
